Ash and Ruin
by AnneM.Oliver
Summary: Sometimes loneliness is harder to handle when you're not alone. (Week one of TMB's War of the Words Challenge)


**Ash & Ruin**

**(Week 1 of The Maple Bookshelf's War of the Words)**

**by**

**AnneM**

**All characters and canon situations are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers and I make no money from the writing or publishing of this story. Thank You.**

Sitting alone on a bluff overlooking the sea, Hermione raised her head toward the sky. It had started to rain – a gentle drizzle – and she knew she should have gone directly to the little cottage where she was planning to spend the weekend, after she Apparated here, but instead she decided to walk the rocky path toward the seashore. She left her suitcase and purse under the sheltering limbs of a tree, stopped on the cliff, sat down on the edge and looked downward toward the shore below her. The sight of the ravenous waves was a welcome sight, just as the rain on her face felt like kisses from an old friend. It was as if the sky was crying the tears that she herself had yet to shed on this auspicious anniversary.

Almost a year ago (it would be a year in two days) her boyfriend of five years, Richard McMillan, died while on holiday with his best friend. They had been staying at this very place on that fateful weekend. It was the weekend before Hermione and Richard were to marry. He came here, with his best friend, as a sort of last hurrah. It all seemed harmless enough at the time. They went out fishing; a sudden storm blew in, the boat capsized, and only one of the men returned to the shore.

Richard was only twenty-nine years old.

They had just bought their first house.

They had started talking about having a family.

Then he went on a fishing trip with his oldest and dearest friend and Hermione never saw him again.

Her life – as she knew it – vanished and was replaced with an aching loneliness that made her feel as if her life was now nothing but ash and ruin.

Hermione met the Muggle-born Irishman while at Uni here in Wales. She met him through his best friend – the man who was with him when he died. She had gone to school with Theodore Nott, although they had never really been friends. But he was a familiar face when she first started school at an unfamiliar place, and so they struck up a tentative, hesitant friendship. A few months later, Theo introduced her to Richard, dated him for five years, and was just a week shy of having a fairy-tale wedding – complete with white dress and flowers and pageantry, when the unthinkable happened.

Theo and Richard took a small boat out to sea so they could fish… something Richard loved to do. A storm, much like the one brewing in the sky right now, came upon them quickly. The small boat capsized. Both had lost their wands in the melee, so they were forced to hang onto the side of the boat while waves crashed around them, the wind and rain barreling down. Richard wasn't strong enough so he let go and drowned. Theo was stronger and he survived.

Hermione hated both of them for that. She hated Richard for dying and Theo for living. She hated Richard for being weak and Theo for being strong. She hated Richard for leaving her and Theo for remaining with her. It was irrational and unfair, but it was how she felt at the time. She no longer felt that way. In the last year, she had time to examine her feelings better and now she knew that what she was really feeling was guilt, mixed with grief. She didn't hate Richard for dying… she didn't hate Theo for living. What she felt was more complex than that single, simple emotion.

Hermione felt guilty because a small part of her was glad that Theo survived and that Richard died. No – that wasn't true. She had never, ever, wanted Richard to die. It was only that she finally realized that she loved one man more than she had loved the other. It made her feel like the worst person in the whole, wide world, but it was honestly how she felt.

As the date of their wedding grew closer, she began to see that she didn't love Richard the way he loved her. She knew, deep in her heart, that she had fallen in love with Theo instead. It took her a long time to admit her duplicitous feelings, but they were honest and raw and hers and she could no longer deny them.

A loud clap of thunder broke through her melancholy. It was time to get out of the rain. She needed to get to the cottage before the storm hit. Scrambling to her feet, she started down the path leading to the little cottage that had once belonged to Richard's family. He had brought her here once, the weekend they became engaged. They were going to come back here for their honeymoon. Instead, she was spending the anniversary of his death there all alone.

Leaving the path, she found the tree where she had stored her suitcase and purse, even as the rain continued in earnest, the slight sprinkles from earlier now a heavy deluge. Leaning her back against the trunk of the tree, she looked back out over the cliff toward the sea, and the translucent light of the setting sun rippling across the waves as they collided on the shore made her wish to be a poet or an artist. It made her want for something profound. It made her ache for everything unknown. The beach looked tranquil, even as the waves crash and roared, and the sky turned dark and fierce.

There was something about the sea that made her feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It made her loneliness grow tenfold… until it almost felt as if it was going to swallow her whole.

She knew if she didn't make a run for the cottage right now, she wouldn't make it at all. The warmth she felt earlier was replaced with a seeping chill brought on by the rain and intensified by her bleak mood. Leaving the shelter of the tree, she scrambled back to the path, keeping her head downward to watch her step.

Suddenly, she ran head-first into an unknown obstacle. Gasping, she lifted her face and tried to focus on the fact that she had literally run into another person. She thought she was all alone here. Apparently, she wasn't.

The man reached out and clasped his hand tightly around her upper arm to keep her from falling. She hadn't even seen him on the path. She didn't hear him over the sounds of the rain around her or the sea below her. She wasn't aware of his presence until she crashed into him, causing them both to stumble.

Dropping her bags, her arms flailed as she started to fall again, but his other hand reached toward her other arm to steady her and keep her upright. They stood chest to chest, almost as if they were in an embrace. Startled, she started to apologize until she saw his face. It was a painfully familiar face. A face of a man she knew. A face of a man she wished she could forget. A beautiful man. A man whom she'd once had romantic feelings. The man who had introduced her to Richard. The man who was with him when he died – indeed, the man Hermione felt was responsible for Richard's death.

The man she felt was responsible for all her guilt and grief.

The man she loved to this day.

What was he doing here, of all places?

She couldn't just retreat. He had seen her and she had seen him. They were practically in each others arms. Words were piling up in her brain, almost as if a damn was blocking their flow from her head to her mouth. There was so much she wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to say. Instead, she pulled her arms from his hands and turned to run away. She left the path, staggering over uneven ground and wet grass and somehow made her way to the cottage.

She pushed the door open. It opened easily. She didn't even have to unlock it with her wand or anything. Finding that odd, she stepped over the threshold and the first thing she noticed was a fire in the grate. She hadn't lit a fire. She turned around in the small main room and noticed a black suitcase in the corner by the alcove where there was a bed and a small nightstand. On the bed was a man's coat. On the nightstand was a wand, and it wasn't hers.

Please, no. All she thought was… no. He couldn't be staying here this weekend. He just couldn't!

Theodore Nott couldn't believe that he'd just run into Hermione Granger. What was she doing here, of all places? He considered running after her, but he was in too much shock. Of course she came here this weekend. It made perfect sense. It was the anniversary of Richard's death, and she came here to either forget about him or to remember him.

It was the same reason Theo came here this weekend. He came to remember the man who had been his best friend in the world. He came to forget the pain and hurt he felt when Richard died. He came to bury the guilt he felt that Richard had drowned and Theo had lived.

Mostly he came to forget the woman who had just run past him on the path. The woman he had loved for more years than he cared to remember. The woman who had loved his best friend instead of him.

She looked at him with horror. What did Theo expect? Did he think she would open her arms wide, smile at him, embrace him, and tell him all was forgiven? Did he think she would magically forget the fact that she was supposed to marry Theo's best friend, and that instead of marrying him she buried him? Was she supposed to tell him that she loved Theo as much as he loved her?

He felt like such a fool. She must even now be up at the cottage, cursing the fact that he was here. He would go and get his things and leave her to her solitude. Goodness knew that was the least he could do for the woman.

It was the very least.

He walked into the cabin. She spun around on her heels, glared at him, frowned and without saying a single word; she rushed up to him and pushed him as hard as she could. Just as she had stumbled earlier when they had collided outside, he stumbled this time, hitting the table behind him and knocking off a teacup, which he had used earlier when he had first arrived.

Why did she push him? What did it mean? Walking over to the door, he slammed it shut and then turned swiftly to stare at her. Let her be the first one to speak. Let her ask him why HE was there. Let her scream and shout and beat him with her fists. Let her blame him, after all, there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't blame himself.

But none of that happened. Instead, she stood before him, water dripping on the floor around their feet, and she sighed. No words… no tears… no explanations or recriminations. Just a single, solitary, lonesome little sigh.

He opened his arms wide and she ran into them, banging against the same table as she did. The saucer (from the same teacup that lay scattered on the floor) wobbled on the edge of the table before it too crashed on the ground by their feet. Not only did it break into tiny little pieces, but the noise broke the silence that surrounded them.

"I'm so sorry," he said. And he meant it. He wrapped his arms tightly around her.

"Me too," she returned. She meant it also. She had to tilt her head back to stare into his eyes.

"I wish it had been me," he admitted.

"I'm glad it wasn't," she countered, lifting her hand to cup his face.

"Do you blame me?" he asked. Goodness knew he blamed himself.

"It wasn't anyone's fault," she said softly.

"Do you want me to leave so you can be alone?" He placed the pad of his thumb under her eye and wiped away a remnant of a tear, or perhaps it was only a drop of rain.

"I'm tired of being alone." Placing her head upon his chest, she said, "I'm also tired of feeling guilty about Richard's death."

Cupping the back of her head with his hand he asked, "Why would you feel guilty? You did nothing wrong. I was the one in the boat with him. I was the one who survived while he died. I'm the one wearing guilt that's like a heavy armor covering my chest, making it hard to breathe – and even harder to _be_."

Again, she tipped back her head and stared into his bright, blue eyes. "I feel guilty because I don't love Richard any longer. I should – but I don't."

"That's alright to feel that way," he confirmed. "Shall I tell you my biggest guilt of all?"

She nodded.

"I'm guilty of being in love with my best friend's former fiancée. I'm guilty of loving her for a very long time. I'm guilty of wanting to spend the rest of my life with her, or the very least, the night with her."

"Oh, Theo," she said, her voice breaking. "I feel that same guilt, but directed toward you. It's tiring to feel so much guilt. Let's throw our guilt away. Let's burn it to the ground and take the ashes and try to make something good from the ruins of our lives. Let's love each other, now and forever, and let's promise that we'll always remember our love for Richard, even as we learn to love each other."

It dawned on Hermione that her loneliness and guilt and shame were like an anchor. If she didn't let them go she would drown in all her sorrows, and that would be such a waste. Theo held her in his embrace and she cried, horribly embarrassing wails and sobs. She cried harder and more intensely than she had cried since the day Richard had died. Perhaps it really was time to love again.

She drew comfort from the confines of his embrace. She felt almost like a new person. When he lowered his head and kissed her on the mouth, she felt as if she had been resurrected from the ashes – made whole and new again. She returned his kiss. She returned his love. She wept with joy just as much as she'd wept with sorrow.

It was time. It was time.


End file.
